Slow Pulp Shares Melodic New Song “Montana”

Slow Pulp have released “Montana,” their fourth single from their upcoming debut album Moveys. The previous singles were “At It Again,” “Idaho” and “Falling Apart.”  The full album will be out October 9 via Winspear. 

The band is based in Chicago, made up of vocalist/guitarist Emily Massey, lead guitarist Henry Stoehr, bassist Alexander Leeds and drummer Theodore Mathews. They play dreamy indie rock/pop and although this will be their first full-length album, they have been releasing music since 2015.

“Montana” is a particularly soft track, especially considering that Stoehr’s original demo was heavy, according to Massey’s official press release statement. “This song is about moving beyond defining myself in terms of my mental health. I’ve been working through this over the last couple of years and this song is a reflection of this process and where I am now. ‘Montana’ was the first song we finished recording for the album. Henry’s early demo was kind of heavy and distorted, and when we went to play it together for the first time, it came out a lot slower and cleaner. Our friend Willie Christianson wrote and recorded the slide guitar and harmonica parts.” Massey’s vocals are soothing when paired with the gentle instrumental.

Massey has been through some really tough times recently, after being diagnosed with Lyme disease and chronic Mono, and then her parents ending up in a serious car crash right before the pandemic quarantine began. She talked about the diagnosis via press release, “When we started writing this record, I had been experiencing so much fatigue and getting sick a lot and I didn’t know what it was. The diagnosis validated a lot of what I was feeling. I got tools for how to take care of myself better.” 

She went on to explain how that affected her songwriting, “The way that I internalize trauma is I will hold it in and not process it for a very long time, but writing songs is the one place where I can’t hide from myself. It just comes out whether or not I want it to or if I’m ready for it to. Figuring out how to write together, as a band, was like me learning how to take care of myself and learning how to communicate better.”